'Tentative Deal' Paves Way for Pennsylvania FedEx Distribution Center
The owners of Willow Brook Farms in Pennsylvania say they have a tentative deal to remove a deed restriction that will enable FedEx Ground to forge ahead with its $335 million distribution plant on land now owned by the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority.
Christopher Lloyd, lead trustee for the Fuller Family Trust that operates the horse farm, said Feb. 12 that the trust reached the deal that would allow roadwork for the FedEx project to run across the eastern portion of Willow Brook Farms in Allen Township.
In exchange, the trust would remove the deed restriction that would have prevented the FedEx plant from being built. The trust also would be paid an undisclosed amount by the project developer, the Rockefeller Group of New York City, according to the authority's executive director, Charles Everett Jr.
"We have a tentative agreement to settle this matter," Lloyd said. "The deed restriction is not an issue anymore. Whatever FedEx decides is now entirely up to them."
FedEx ranks No. 2 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
That decision remains in question now that FedEx has begun shopping the project — and with it more than 2,500 jobs — to Bethlehem.
Everett said the Bethlehem option was merely a backup plan, in case the deed restriction was not settled.
"I don't consider the deed restriction issue over until a deal is signed, but I know there's a tentative deal, and I'm confident it will be finalized," Everett said. "As I see it, Bethlehem was just a contingency. We expect this project to be full steam ahead, once the deed agreement is signed."
Everett confirmed that the deal with the Fuller Trust includes a cash payment, but he would not say how much.
The announcement comes a day after the Bethlehem Planning Commission approved plans for a 981,000-square-foot facility at the Majestic Center, a park of large-scale warehousing in some of the more remote parts of the former Bethlehem Steel plant.
Bethlehem planners touted the benefits of FedEx's moving to the Majestic location, including its proximity to Interstate 78 and nearby e-commerce facilities, including a Wal-Mart fulfillment center. At one point, Planning Commission Chairman Robert Melosky asked Majestic officials to convey to FedEx representatives that the Bethlehem site is "shovel-ready."
"I don't think you can find — and no disrespect to the other location that the company is looking into — but I don't think you could find a better spot for this to occur," Melosky said.
Alluding to the delays over the property owned by the airport authority, which runs Lehigh Valley International Airport, Majestic officials told city planners the proposal was an attempt to keep the project in the Lehigh Valley.
FedEx spokesman David Westrick declined to comment on any tentative deal with the Fuller Trust on Feb. 12.
"We are committed to building a hub in the Lehigh Valley," Westrick said. "The Allen Township site is our preferred choice, but because we have to be breaking ground in spring or early summer, we are considering this alternative site in Bethlehem."
Ed Konjoyan, senior vice president at Majestic Realty, could not be reached for comment Feb. 12.
Majestic officials said at the Planning Commission meeting that the company could be ready to pour concrete for the project by May.
The project in Allen Township still requires some work, including getting rights of way for road widening, but a tentative deal involving the deed restriction would clear the last major hurdle, Everett said.
That legal tussle in Allen Township began in the 1990s, when Willow Brook Farms sold part of the land for a golf course. Attached to the sale was a covenant to the deed that restricted development from industrial or commercial use. It was done to protect the farm, according to the Fuller Family Trust.
That deed restriction remains, preventing the airport authority from closing its deal to sell the land to the Rockefeller Group for the FedEx project.
Authority attorneys have argued that the deed restriction should have been voided when the court deemed that the authority effectively condemned the land in 1996. But Fuller Family Trust officials had said they intended to enforce the deed restriction until they knew their land is safe.
FedEx has invested millions of dollars and nearly three years of planning into locating what would be one of the nation's largest package-sorting facilities in Allen Township. And the authority had viewed the $9.9 million deal to sell its land for the FedEx building as a way to get to millions of dollars of capital projects that had been delayed for five years.
The authority on Jan. 26 gave the Rockefeller Group a 90-day extension to begin building the massive plant along Willowbrook Road. Everett has said FedEx Ground is planning to break ground this spring and be open in 2018.
